


and brave when you are free

by banshee_in_the_dark



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Friendship, Gen, I'm Bad At Tagging, Post Episode 2x01, basically I miss Miller, if he doesn't help Clarke get everyone out of that mountain I will set everything around me on fire
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-28
Updated: 2014-10-28
Packaged: 2018-02-23 00:37:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2527511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/banshee_in_the_dark/pseuds/banshee_in_the_dark
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post 2x01, Clarke is not as alone in her belief the Mountain Men are not to be trusted as she believed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	and brave when you are free

Twenty-one days.

That’s how long they’d been on the ground. Keeping track of time here was inherently easier than on space, where devices like watches and synchronized lighting cycles were needed to keep them sane. But Earth facilitated the job, spinning on itself, the sun rising and falling on the horizon signaling the passing of days.

She saw twenty-one sunsets and twenty dawns, each one magnificent. Intellectually Clarke knew they were all the same but every time felt new and wonderful to her greedy eyes, for so long accustomed to the oppressing darkness of endless space and the faint glow of stars. Not even the moon had fascinated her so much, and she’d spent countless hours staring at it from the glass of her family’s quarters.

She had twenty-one days of breathing real air, seeing real colors, feeling really alive.

And now she was trapped once again, with no sure way of knowing how long it’s been.

Her time on the white room was pure torture. The innocuous music they played her was evenly endless and she suspected they brought her meals at irregular intervals precisely to keep her from tracking time. How long she was unconscious was also a mystery to her. By her estimation Monty had been missing from camp for little over 48 hours before the rest of them were taken, but when she’d asked him he told her it felt like a week until he saw her face across the hall of the quarantine ward.

She asked around but the others gave her inconsistent answers. To some their captivity felt short while others claimed they’d been down there for almost two weeks. They only certain timeline she could establish was that they’d been cleared from their isolation progressively starting two days prior to her own release.

When she brought the matter to President Wallace he brushed it off and expertly sidestepped her question. Again Clarke asked for her father’s watch to the same disappointing outcome as last time.

She started tracking the days by the meals and sleep cycles, a process she was eerily familiar with thanks to a lifetime on the Ark. They came at regular intervals. A big breakfast at the start of the day, then a quick lunch four hours later. Tea time was at five even though there was no clock anywhere she’d seen but she’d eavesdropped on Wallace’s wife telling one of her posh friends she’s meet her for tea at five, and sure enough when they were herded to the grand hall later that day she saw the two women sharing a table and daintily talking over the edge of her tea cups.

Lastly, there was dinner approximately three hours later, a grand affair with everyone wearing their finest clothes.

Clarke observed the people around the hall. Their eating ritual was like nothing she’d ever experienced. The initial prayer, the impeccable manners, the precise seating arrangements by rank, the pattern of conversation, everything was unfamiliar. Meals on the Ark consisted of tasteless nutrition packets and little else, and on the ground they’d hunted and unceremoniously prepared their own food. This shiny process they were expected to follow both fascinated her and unnerved her.

Clarke turned her head to the seat beside her, occupied by Miller. She still had a hard time looking at him without his beanie, another contaminated object that like her father’s watch was too hazardous to keep inside Mount Weather.

He took the bowl Jasper passed him and she smiled, eyeing him quizzically as he piled his plate high with big spoons of mashed potatoes and other vegetables, ignoring the enticing meat pie on the platter in front of him.

“I’m not eating that,” he said when he caught her look. “I’ve been to their agro section and didn’t see no livestock around, not that they could sustain that underground. And they’re not bringing meat from outside because the radiation in it would kill them,” he explained covertly, his voice low so the conversation remained private between the two of them. Clarke had soon learned Miller was the only one beside her who held reservations about the Mountain Men and agreed they needed to escape. “I don’t know where that meat is coming from and honestly I don’t want to know, but I sure as hell aren’t touching that stuff.”

“I hear it’s something called tofu though,” Clarke smiled. Next he’d probably say something crazy like they were eating people.

“Not risking it.”

Clarke humored him, pushing away the bits of meat pie she’d cut and only eating her vegetables.

“I found a camera on a vent,” she whispered. “They’ve been watching us on our room. They’re lying to us. We _are_ prisoners here.”

His fork froze for a second on the way to his mouth. “What did you do with it?”

“Nothing. I don’t want them to know that I know. It could prove useful later.”

A loud laugh caught her attention. Clarke looked farther down the table where her delinquents were smiling and joyously devouring their meal.

“Am I crazy?” she asked, her stomach tying in knots. “They’re happy. They aren’t starving or cold, they feel safe here. That’s so much more than we were able to give them outside… What if these people are genuinely nice and I’m mucking it all up being so paranoid?”

They were just kids. All the things they’d seen and done since they were sent to the ground had changed them but they were still teenagers. The lift of responsibility off their shoulders was a mighty temptation. Did it really matter that they were prisoners when the walls that held them also kept them safe and healthy? That they couldn’t make their own decisions when the people making them were so adamant to please them and keep them comfortable?

Could she live with herself if she succeeded in freeing them only to force a harsh existence upon them, fighting for their lives every single day, not knowing when their next meal would come and watching more of their friends inevitably die?

“Bellamy wouldn’t think you’re crazy,” Miller claimed emphatically. “Look, I’m with you. If you at one point decide these people are to be trusted then I will eat their damn meat pie. But if your instincts are telling you we need to be on our guard…” He shook his head, letting the sentence die.

Her fingers curled on his forearm and squeezed a little before dropping her hand. “Thank you,” she swallowed, her eyes shifting to glance at President Wallace. “But what if I get them out and more of them die trying to survive? Here they have a chance at life – ”

“Captivity isn’t life. And trust me, all of us got the short end of the straw back on the Ark and resented the hell of it. This place isn’t much different,” he snorted. “They’ll come around and want to leave, and you have to be there to lead them when that happens.”

Clarke sighed. Miller could be impulsive and rash but he was incredibly loyal and he’d saved her life pulling her into the drop ship at the last minute. _You should keep him around_ , Bellamy had said. She could hear his voice clearly, like he was right there beside her and not outside fighting for his life. And he was fighting, she knew it in her gut. She wouldn’t give up on her belief that he and Finn and all the others had made it safely after they fired the rockets until she could see their bodies with her own eyes.

And he would expect her to fight as well.

“I want to know what kind of tests they did on us,” she said resolutely, changing the subject. She pushed her doubts out of her mind. She trusted her instincts and they were screaming that the Mountain Men did not have their best interest at heart. She owed it to her people to follow them, even if they resented her for it, and to Bellamy to do everything he would in her place. “Find out if anyone was conscious during their examinations. I will ask Wallace to spend some time on the medical ward using my training as an excuse and hopefully get a hold on our files.”

“I’ll ask around,” Miller promised. “If you need me to sneak in there too I can tear my stitches,” he offered casually, shrugging the shoulder where he took a spear during the battle with the grounders.

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

**Author's Note:**

> Your comments are the driving force of my writing, so please click the button and let me know what you think of this XD
> 
> I'm bellohmyblake on tumblr, come say hi and we can cry about how incredible the season is going to be!


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